Disable text wrapping in Android

I’m working on a project in Android where I have a TextView (an EditText to be exact) and a setting to enable or disable text wrapping for that view. I have searched the internet (a lot) but still haven’t found any satisfying solution.

Currently I’m using a NestedScrollView for the vertical scrolling and then dynamically insert one of two partial layouts, the first containing just an EditText, the second with the EditText wrapped inside a HorizontalScrollView. The problem is that I currently have to restart the activity every time I return from another one to ensure I don’t accidentally add two children to the NestedScrollView (causing an exception). Also, the code that would account for that seems a bit bulky and confusing.

The first partial layout:

<com.example.application.EditorView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/editor_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:background="@android:color/transparent"
    android:layout_gravity="start|top"
    android:importantForAutofill="no"
    android:inputType="textMultiLine|textCapSentences"
    android:padding="@dimen/def_padding"
    android:textIsSelectable="true"
    android:textSize="18sp"
    tools:ignore="LabelFor,ScrollViewSize" />

The second one:

<android.widget.HorizontalScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/hscroll"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <com.example.application.EditorView
        android:id="@+id/editor_content"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:gravity="start|top"
        android:background="@android:color/transparent"
        android:importantForAutofill="no"
        android:inputType="textMultiLine|textCapSentences"
        android:padding="@dimen/def_padding"
        android:textIsSelectable="true"
        android:textSize="18sp"
        tools:ignore="LabelFor,ScrollViewSize" />

</android.widget.HorizontalScrollView>

(EditorView simply extends EditText and in no way effects the layout)

I’ve also found that EditText has a setHorizontallyScrolling(true) method, but using that I don’t get a gliding effect when the user swipes which in my opinion feels less user friendly.

Having said all that, my question is: In Android, is there a way to dynamically enable text wrapping inside a HorizontalScrollView, or to have an option to toggle it natively included inside a (custom) EditText?

Answer

I’ve finally found a decent solution! Basically, in my custom View I set the width to the screen width whenever a configuration change occurs and line wrapping is enabled (I also set it when the View is first initialized):

@Override
protected void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
    super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);

    if (/* line wrapping enabled */)
        setWidth(Resources.getSystem().getDisplayMetrics().widthPixels);
    else setWidth(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
}

This only works because, in my case, the EditText fills the entire screen, so setting the width to the desired value is quite easy. Before I tried using MATCH_PARENT and WRAP_CONTENT, but inside a HorizontalScrollView that doesn’t enable text wrapping as I’d hoped.

Note that this View is contained inside a HorizontalScrollView inside a ScrollView, so by default it would scroll both horizontally and vertically.

Hope this helps anyone else who comes across this problem!

EDIT: If text wrapping was previously enabled and you try disabling it with this approach, the text will still be wrapped, as the content is, by definition, already wrapped. The only fix I can think of is completely reloading the View together with its ScrollViews. If you find another solution, please let me know.